My Home Sweet Rome – The Blog http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home Mon, 18 Oct 2021 19:57:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.32 Lazio region shines in Covid battle http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1147 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1147#respond Mon, 18 Oct 2021 19:57:35 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1147 I'm done. Not many people here now as Sunday lunchtime!!!

I’m done. Not many people here now as Sunday lunchtime!!!

Last spring when Covid vaccinations started, I was very envious of my friends in the US who were able to get vaccinated months before those of us in the same age group – over 65 – over here. But then, lo and behold, in a country not known for efficiency, a miracle occurred.  Italy’s vaccination program was up and running before one knew it. And double lo and behold, the Lazio region  (the capital of which is Rome) with a reputation for being a laggart. suddenly became a front-runner- We’ll never know exactly how this happened. Should all the kudos go to Nicola Zingaretti, Lazio’s center-left Regional President (these days the Italians are starting to use the word Governor)? Or it this the work of Health Commissioner Alessio D’Amato who has been governing with Zingaretti since their ticket was elected to office in 2013 (and re-elected in 2018).?

Who knows. The fact is that at midnight on March 5, the day people from my birth year were allowed to reserve a slot, I was sitting in front of my computer following the pretty clear instructions that the Regione Lazio had put on line on its website. I was given a date for a first Pfizer shot on March 29 and was allowed to choose among a series of official structures in Rome, but had I wanted I could also have gone elsewhere in Lazio, for example in or near Bolsena where I have a house,k but that might have meant  waiting another couple of weeks. The second shot, like the first to be held at the Forlanini hospital about a 15 minute motorbike ride away (yes, I went on my motorbike because I was sure I would have no adverse effects) was scheduled for April 19.

Six months later, Lazio is one of the leaders in both Italy and in Europe with 88 percent of the population over 18 fully vaccinated (and 82 percent of the population over 12).

Lazio Health Commissioner Alessio D'Amato.

Lazio Health Commissioner Alessio D’Amato.

Not bad at all considering that there is still a hardcore minority which refuses to get the vaccine either out of fear (mostly irrational to my mind) or because of some sort of ideological stubbornness which given the strict rules for the workplace imposed last week by the Italian government – the so-called Green Pass –  actually prefer to pay €15 euros every two days for a rapid Covid test than get the shot, even the traditional style one-shot-only Johnson and Johnson. traditional vaccine. Oh well. At least the pharmacies providing this service are making a lot of money.

Why has Lazio done so well? To be honest, despite some snags elsewhere along the way, most of Italy’s 20 regions currently are at a very good point. But Lazio surely has made giant steps in making things easy. Once the third dose for people over 65 was announced, a couple of weeks ago, I made a quick calculation regarding when the sixth months after my second shot would have passed and went on line on October 14. The website, as presently configured,  gave a choice for third dose, first dose and second dose reservations, as well as providing special digital pathways for health sector personnel, people living or working in nursing homes and people with special immunological problems.  Signing up was even easier than last spring. I was told that I could book for any day starting October 16 and for every day a list of structures and time-slots was provided. Easy-peasy.  And in this regard I should mention that when the Green Pass was introduced in June – for vaccinated people it lasts 12 months, not two days – I quickly received the code to download a  European Green Pass that would replace my original vaccination certificate. This morning I received the code to update my current Green Pass to show I’d had a third shot as well.

In the name of full disclosure, I should reveal that there have been some glitches. I’ve read that some people have had trouble downloading their Green Pass, and there have been mix-ups for the few people who have had one shot on a different region and the second here in Lazio.  And I myself did have one problem: progomaòòy. I was going to get the jab on Saturday at the vaccination center near symphony call but when I got there at the assigned time, 10:30 a.m., the office was inexplicably closed (possibly because of the Rome Cinema Festival going on this week right next door??) and we were turned away. However, a phone call to the Lazio Regionìs Covid Reservations center  (which actually does answer the phone!!!) quickly put things right. They cancelled the Saturday appointment and I went back on line and booked for the following day. Not, naturally, at the same center but at one actually closer to my home.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1147 0
Authorities cracking down on absenteeism? We’ll see. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1126 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1126#respond Sun, 26 Feb 2017 11:26:50 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1126 loretomare2It’s amazing. Despite the fact that in recent years people have frequently gotten caught in very-well publicized investigations at post offices and ministries, a huge number of Italian public employees are apparently still convinced they can get away with it. Not murder, of course, but absenteeism taken to ridiculous extremes.

This time it happened at Naples’ Loreto Mare hospital where earlier this week, at the end of a two-year inquiry, Carabinieri arrested 55 employees out of a total of 94 under investigation. Representing almost third of the clinic’s entire work staff, the accused – most of whom are now under house arrest, some being escorted to work daily by police – included a neurologist, a gynecologist, four other doctors, nine radiology technicians, six administrative clerks, nine maintenance technicians  and ten social assistants. All of them appeared to have found ways to punch in to their jobs, or to punch their colleagues in, while at the same time turning their attention elsewhere. Some were out playing tennis, one was working as a chef in a local restaurant, others went shopping or to the gym.

The mayor of Naples. Luigi de Magistris says the arrests represent “a shameful page that wounds the heart and dignity of this city” and called for “strong measures” to be taken. The president of the Campania region, Vincenzo De Luca, promises that “we will be inflexible when it comes to those who do not do their duty”. But the failure to apply serious disciplinary measures may be the real problem. Often in these cases the authorities have been unable to do more than suspend the guilty for only a few days and punishments have amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist.

Now, however, things should change. A new clause in the laws governing the employees of the public administration, says that in the case of such infractions – when evidence exists that they have clocked in but then left the rpemises –  people can be fired within 30 days. For those instead who claim to be absent for health reasons but who are not at home when the government doctor shows up, suspension from their jobs should take place within 48 hours. Personnel officials who turn a blind eye to such abuses will also be subject to dismissal.

We shall see.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1126 0
Funiculi, funicula. Oh, give me a break! http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1121 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1121#respond Sun, 06 Nov 2016 14:36:12 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1121 RomaritardiautobusI guess I missed this during last spring’s mayoral election campaign here in Rome, but it seems the mayoress (she stupidly has insisted on being called “sindaca” which is not an Italian word – the word is sindaco and can just as easily refer to a woman as a man) is going ahead with her idea of building a funicular lift to link the northwestern periphery area called Casalotti to the first station, Battastini, on the Metro A line.

The idea has met with general skepticism in a city where public transport is a near disaster and where talk is cheap. (Need I remind anyone that the idea of a bridge over the Straits of Messina has been under discussion in Italy for more than 40 years, even longer perhaps and that nothing has ever been built? And to my mind never will be.)

A report last month by a city watchdog committee revealed that Romans are extremely dissatisfied with city services. On a scale of ten, citizens rate street cleanliness at only 3.3, garbage collection at 4.2, bus and tram service at 4,5, subway service at 5.5, and lighting – the only item in this category to have received a better vote than last year – at 6.2. The overall quality of life in the country’s capital stands at 5.1, a bit lower than last year and continuing the decline that began in 2012. (Culture, water supply, social services and taxis are instead above the merely passing level, which in the Italian grade system stands at 6.) So a funicular? Is these conditions? No wonder skepticism is the order of the day.

pullman-kka--398x174@Corriere-Web-RomaThe greatest dissatisfaction with city conditions can be found in the centro storico, the historic center, which is where I live and which is currently turning into a real disaster zone.  Potholes have become a real nightmare, especially for the city’s tens of thousands of motorcyclists. Uncared for cobblestones, missing their connecting cement or sometimes missing altogether, are a growing hazard for those on foot. Buses are overcrowded and delays are enormous. Garbage collection is at best spotty. The sidewalks are jammed by unlicensed peddlers. Fast-food eateries are everywhere. Tourist buses park illegally, clogging the downtown area, despite plans, more plans and even more plans, to contain their presence. About which the city police do nothing. Unlicensed vacation apartments, thousands of them, are changing (in a negative way) the residential nature of the center and authorities do nothing. The city is out of control and so far the supposedly reformist new mayor and her upstart Five Star Movement has shown no indication that they will have the ability to do something about any of this.

It’s truer than ever: it’s a nice place to visit but you’d never want to live here. Not these days.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1121 0
Too much English, but not on Italian tongues. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1117 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1117#comments Mon, 04 Jul 2016 18:20:34 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1117 badenglish2Did you know that your Italian health service doctor can now send you a prescription for a Class A pharmaceutical even if you are out of town? Yes, indeed. And it’s quite convenient with only one element of absurdity. Here we are in Italy, speaking and reading the language of Dante, and this new online system which you have to register with and which (strangely enough) works beautifully is called………….MyHealthBook. Yep. Not IlMioLibrettoSanitario but MyHealthBook.

Now this is downright ridiculous. It’s one thing to read in the newspapers about Whistleblowing, as I did recently, as there does not seem to be a single word in Italian to express that concept. And maybe one can also close an eye to parole techniche come computer e software (although the French and some Spanish-speaking countries have chosen a different path).  But Jobs Act? voluntary disclosure (for Italian residents with undeclared bank accounts abroad), question time, spending review, standing ovation, hotspot, stepchild adoption etc. etc. I mean, really!

english badIt’s true that English has more words than Italian; recently, I read that there may be more than a million English words these days while estimates of the number of Italian words seems to hover around the 260,00 mark. But this does not seem to account for the predilection of some Italians – the Renzi government seems to have an exaggerated penchant for this – for using English instead of making do with time-proven Italian words.

Obviously, there is some kind of snobbism afoot since as we all know, despite the presence everywhere of English, in shop signs and advertisements, very few Italians know English really well and in fact one repeatedly finds signs, handwritten or not, with glaring errors in English.ì, my favorite being “Next opening” as opposed to “prossima apertura.  True, there are many more – witness waiters, café servers and shop assistants –  than in the past who can now manage with tourists quite well . But a good English-speaker is still very hard to find and Prime Minister Renzi is a live example of how unprepared for linguistic globalization this country’s politicians still are.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1117 1
For Rome’s new mayor, an uphill road. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1115 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1115#respond Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:56:17 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1115 virginiaraggisindaco4 (1)Italy’s new young mayor, Virginia Raggi, a member of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement party (M5S), earlier this month managed to convince a majority of Roman voters that a new broom will really sweep clean. But, boy oh boy, is she going to have her work cut out for her.

Raggi, soon to be 38, a lawyer specializing in civil matters but who has next to no governing experience, took office more or less on the same day that Rome court officials filed charges against several city employees for taking bribes in 2013 for awarding contracts to social organizations. The new arrests came 18 months after dozens of city employees were sent to jail or put under home arrest when it became known that they were taking bribes to facilitate public contracts to other social agencies with criminal ties who then provided substandard  − or, sometimes, non-existent – services often regarding hospitality for immigrants or refugees from Africa and the Middle East. At the time, one of the criminals involved in what has come to be known as “Mafia Capitale” was overheard, in a phone tap, boasting that more money was being made from the immigrant arrivals than from drug trafficking.

Raggi is the first woman ever to serve as the mayor of Italy’s capital (the city of Turin also elected a woman for the first time this year). But being a woman is unlikely to represent a problem; although Italy’s parliament has fewer women members than other European countries, there have been dozens of high-powered women in Italian politics over the decades.

What is going to be difficult for a neophyte is to exert significant influence over local power strongholds such as the unions, the city police and the local utility companies. It is also unclear to what degree Raggi has sufficient personal clout to be able to control her own party or whether she was merely an acceptable face for them to put forward. Certainly, she has a leg up thanks to her party’s sweeping victory at the polls; the M5S now controls 29 of the 48 seats in the City Council and the opposition – 19 seats – is divided among seven different political groupings. The once dominant party, the Partito Democratico or PD, now has only 7 representatives in that body.

There is little doubt that the M5S, which burst onto the scene only 13 years ago and has been capitalizing on the dissatisfaction that many Italians feel towards those who have been governing it, will be doing its best to govern Rome efficiently. The party founded by the (to my mind, obnoxious) comedian, Beppe Grillo, sees its victory in the capital as a possible stepping stone to governing the entire country. Vice versa, the PD’s defeat in Rome is seen as a major setback for PD Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

But the M5S may also be its own worst enemy. The new mayor has been struggling to form a cabinet, at least in part because she is asking all future city commissioners to sign a contract promising to back all goals decided on by the party leadership and setting a fine of 150 Euros for any one breaking faith. This may be an attempt to bypass the sluggish city bureaucratic machine in decision-making but so far at least has met with considerable opposition. The new M5S mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino (who at 31 is even younger than Raggi, although I find she projects a more dynamic image), has done no such thing.

But the city’s problems are enormous; as someone who has lived in Rome since 1972, I can easily say that the city is in a state of chaos rarely seen before. The M5S’ platform called for  improving the city’s appearance – dirt, uncollected garbage, dog shit, and hundreds of unlicensed peddlers – something which should be relatively easy, and fighting corruption, which will be extremely difficult. Last year, in comments made in Milan where he was being honored, Raffaele Cantone, the head of Italy’s National Anti-Corruption authority, said Rome lacks the necessary antibodies to withstand corruption. And on winding up a six-month term as Rome’s emergency administrator following the resignation last November of mayor Ignazio Marino, prefect Francesco Paolo Tronca said fighting corruption in Rome was a challenge. The city’s bureaucratic machinery was so complex, rusty, fragmented and out of sync with the times, he said, that it was easy for corrupt officials to hide their nefarious doings. When he took office, one of the first things Tronca did was to install a plan of rotation for high-level bureaucrats. But almost nothing has happened because they have all gone to court, which in Italy means that months, if not years, will pass before the issues are resolved.

Along with the problem of corruption and its deep-seated roots, Raggi has to deal with a city that while nearing bankruptcy is in need of huge amounts of investment. The potholes in a city where thousands ride motorcycles and scooters have gotten way out of hand. Public transport is totally inadequate. And garbage collection is often sporadic.

In view of the city’s needs, Raggi has so far appeared negative or at best lukewarm on the prospect of Rome’s hosting the 2024 Olympics. She has also promised to get the Roman Catholic Church to finally pay its millions of unpaid real estate taxes. She is a practicing Catholic but has implied she will not hesitate to insist on what some say are unpaid taxes amounting to as much as €400 million.

.

.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1115 0
For Rome’s new mayor, an uphill road http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1109 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1109#respond Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:30:26 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1109 virginiaraggisindaco4 (1)Italy’s new young mayor, Virginia Raggi, a member of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement party (M5S), earlier this month managed to convince a majority of Roman voters that a new broom will really sweep clean. But, boy oh boy, is she going to have her work cut out for her.

Raggi, soon to be 38, a lawyer specializing in civil matters but who has next to no governing experience, took office more or less on the same day that Rome court officials filed charges against several city employees for taking bribes in 2013 for awarding contracts to social organizations. The new arrests came 18 months after dozens of city employees were sent to jail or put under home arrest when it became known that they were taking bribes to facilitate public contracts to other social agencies with criminal ties who then provided substandard  − or, sometimes, non-existent – services often regarding hospitality for immigrants or refugees from Africa and the Middle East. At the time, one of the criminals involved in what has come to be known as “Mafia Capitale” was overheard, in a phone tap, boasting that more money was being made from the immigrant arrivals than from drug trafficking.

Raggi is the first woman ever to serve as the mayor of Italy’s capital (the city of Turin also elected a woman for the first time this year). But being a woman is unlikely to represent a problem; although Italy’s parliament has fewer women members than other European countries, there have been dozens of high-powered women in Italian politics over the decades.

What is going to be difficult for a neophyte is to exert significant influence over local power strongholds such as the unions, the city police and the local utility companies. It is also unclear to what degree Raggi has sufficient personal clout to be able to control her own party or whether she was merely an acceptable face for them to put forward. Certainly, she has a leg up thanks to her party’s sweeping victory at the polls; the M5S now controls 29 of the 48 seats in the City Council and the opposition – 19 seats – is divided among seven different political groupings. The once dominant party, the Partito Democratico or PD, now has only 7 representatives in that body.

There is little doubt that the M5S, which burst onto the scene only 13 years ago and has been capitalizing on the dissatisfaction that many Italians feel towards those who have been governing it, will be doing its best to govern Rome efficiently. The party founded by the (to my mind, obnoxious) comedian, Beppe Grillo, sees its victory in the capital as a possible stepping stone to governing the entire country. Vice versa, the PD’s defeat in Rome is seen as a major setback for PD Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

But the M5S may also be its own worst enemy. The new mayor has been struggling to form a cabinet, at least in part because she is asking all future city commissioners to sign a contract promising to back all goals decided on by the party leadership and setting a fine of 150 Euros for any one breaking faith. This may be an attempt to bypass the sluggish city bureaucratic machine in decision-making but so far at least has met with considerable opposition. The new M5S mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino (who at 31 is even younger than Raggi, although I find she projects a more dynamic image), has done no such thing.

But the city’s problems are enormous; as someone who has lived in Rome since 1972, I can easily say that the city is in a state of chaos rarely seen before. The M5S’ platform called for  improving the city’s appearance – dirt, uncollected garbage, dog shit, and hundreds of unlicensed peddlers – something which should be relatively easy, and fighting corruption, which will be extremely difficult. Last year, in comments made in Milan where he was being honored, Raffaele Cantone, the head of Italy’s National Anti-Corruption authority, said Rome lacks the necessary antibodies to withstand corruption. And on winding up a six-month term as Rome’s emergency administrator following the resignation last November of mayor Ignazio Marino, prefect Francesco Paolo Tronca said fighting corruption in Rome was a challenge. The city’s bureaucratic machinery was so complex, rusty, fragmented and out of sync with the times, he said, that it was easy for corrupt officials to hide their nefarious doings. When he took office, one of the first things Tronca did was to install a plan of rotation for high-level bureaucrats. But almost nothing has happened because they have all gone to court, which in Italy means that months, if not years, will pass before the issues are resolved.

Along with the problem of corruption and its deep-seated roots, Raggi has to deal with a city that while nearing bankruptcy is in need of huge amounts of investment. The potholes in a city where thousands ride motorcycles and scooters have gotten way out of hand. Public transport is totally inadequate. And garbage collection is often sporadic.

In view of the city’s needs, Raggi has so far appeared negative or at best lukewarm on the prospect of Rome’s hosting the 2024 Olympics. She has also promised to get the Roman Catholic Church to finally pay its millions of unpaid real estate taxes. She is a practicing Catholic but has implied she will not hesitate to insist on what some say are unpaid taxes amounting to as much as €400 million.

.

 

 

.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1109 0
New Rome mayor faces an uphill battle http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1105 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1105#respond Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:27:03 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1105 Italy’s new, young mayor, Virginia Raggi, a member of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement party (M5S), earlier this month managed to convince a majority of Roman voters that a new broom will really sweep clean. But, boy oh boy, is she going to have her work cut out for her.

Raggi, soon to be 38, a lawyer specializing in civil matters but who has next to no governing experience, took office more or less on the same day that Rome court officials filed charges against several city employees for taking bribes in 2013 for awarding contracts to social organizations. The new arrests came 18 months after dozens of city employees were sent to jail or home arrest when it became known that they were taking bribes to facilitate public contracts to other social agencies with criminal ties who then provided substandard  − or, sometimes, non-existent – services often regarding hospitality for immigrants or refugees from Africa and the Middle East. At the time, one of the criminals was overheard, in a phone tap, boasting that more money was being made from the immigrant arrivals than from drug trafficking.

Raggi is the first woman ever to serve as the mayor of Italy’s capital (the city of Turin also elected a woman for the first time this year). But being a woman is unlikely to represent a problem; although Italy’s parliament has fewer women members than other European countries, there have been dozens of high-powered women in Italian politics over the decades.

What is going to be difficult for a neophyte is to exert significant influence over local power strongholds such as the unions, the city police and the local utility companies. It is also unclear to what degree Raggi has enough personal clout can control her own party or whether she was merely an acceptable face for them to put forward. Certainly, she has a leg up thanks to her party’s sweeping victory at the polls; the M5S now controls 29 of the 48 seats in the City Council and the opposition – 19 seats – is divided among seven different political groupings. The once dominant party, the Partito Democratico or PD, now has only 7 representatives in that body.

There is little doubt that the M5S, which burst onto the scene only 13 years ago and has been capitalizing on the dissatisfaction that many Italians feel towards those who have been governing it, will be doing its best to govern Rome efficiently. The party founded by the(to my mind, obnoxious) comedian, Beppe Grillo ,sees its victory in the capital as a possible stepping stone to governing the entire country. Vica versa, the PD’s defeat in Rome is seen as a major setback for PD Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

But the M5S may also be its own worst enemy. The new mayor has been struggling to form a cabinet, at least in part because she is asking all future city commissioners to sign a contract promising to back all goals decided on by the party leadership and setting a fine of 150 Euros for any one breaking faith. This may be an attempt to bypass the sluggish city bureaucratic machine in decision-making but so far at least has bet with considerable opposition. The new M5S mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino (who at 31 is even younger than Raggi, although I find she projects a more dynamic image), has done no such thing.

But the city’s problems are enormous; as someone who has lived in Rome since 1972, I can easily say that the city is in a state of chaos rarely seen before. The M5S’ platform called for a fight based on improving the city’s appearance – dirt, uncollected garbage, dog shit, and hundreds of unlicensed peddlers – something which should be relatively easy, and fighting corruption, which will be extremely difficult. Last year, in comments made in Milan where he was being honored, Rafaele Cantone, the head of Italy’s National Anti-Corruption authority, said Rome lacks the necessary antibodies to withstand corruption. And on winding up a six-month term as Rome’s emergency administrator following the resignation last November of mayor Ignazio Marino, prefect Francesco Paolo Tronca said fighting corruption in Rome was a challenge. The city’s bureaucratic€€ machinery was so complex, rusty, fragmented and out of sync with the times that it was easy for corrupt officials to hide their nefarious doings. When he took office, one of the first things he did was to install a plan of rotation for high-level bureaucrats. But almost nothing has happened because they have all gone to court which in Italy means that months, if not years, will pass before the issues are resolved.

Along with the problem of corruption and its deep-seated roots, Raggi has to deal with a city that while nearing bankruptcy is in need of huge amounts of investment. The potholes in a city where thousands ride motorcycles and scooters have gotten way out of hand. Public transport is totally inadequate. And garbage collection is often sporadic.

In view of the city’s needs, Raggi has so far appeared negative or at best lukewarm on the prospect of Rome’s hosting the 2024 Olympics. She has also promised to get the Roman Catholic Church to finally pay its millions of unpaid real estate taxes. She is a practicing Catholic but has implied she will not hesitate to insist on what some say are unpaid taxes amounting to as much as €400 million.

.

 

 

.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1105 0
Seeing will be believing http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1100 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1100#respond Sun, 22 May 2016 18:53:44 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1100 fumoparcoRaise your hand if you have ever seen someone in Rome get a fine for not picking up after his or her dog, or for letting it run free without a leash.

Raise your hand if you have ever gotten a ticket for double-parking your car (I got one recently when I ran into a pet store to get cat food but I bet I am part of a very very very small minority).

Raise your hand if you believe that the people who smoke in Rome’s parks (between June 15 and September 30) are really and truly going to get tickets.

Nuff said.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1100 0
La scoperta di acqua calda http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1097 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1097#respond Sun, 22 May 2016 18:36:49 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1097 The Italians use the above expression – the discovery of hot water – when they want to poke fun at importance given to something that to most people is pretty obvious.

This is what many of us could say about the recent announcement that voting for both this June’s local elections and next October’s popular referendum on proposed constitutional reforms will be held on one day only (Sunday) and not on the two days (Sunday and Monday) that have always massively boosted costs AND kept children out of schools for at least a day if not more.

I don’t know how many other countries have such a system but in Italy the reason this was originally done, I believe, was that so voters would not be penalized for spending their Sundays out of town or at the beach and would still have the option to get to the polls on the following day. But it is expensive and socially costly (closing down schools). So this is a good thing. What is not known is whether it will be forever or just for the next two elections.

Somehow, however, Italy’s school year always seems to get the short end of the stick. This year, because of the so called “bridge holiday” caused by the June 2 (Republic Day) holiday, which this year falls on a Thursday giving the better off the chance for yet another long weekend, and because of the June 5th vote in 1,363 municipalities (which means the schools are invaded by election officials starting two days earlier) and a run-off vote, where necessary, two weeks later, school in Italy this year actually ends at the end of May, meaning that the 200 school days guaranteed by law may well not be respected.

Maybe this makes Italian kids happy. But what about their parents? With schools closing between one and two weeks early this year (depending on the Region, of which Italy has 20), they are going to be forced to make other, possibly costly, babysitting arrangements for their children.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1097 0
The last of Italy’s postwar giants is dead http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1089 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1089#comments Sat, 21 May 2016 20:19:14 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1089 People attend the final farewell to the founder of the Radical Party, Marco Pannella, during a public ceremony in Rome's central Navona Square, Italy, 21 May 2016. Marco Pannella, the longtime firebrand leader of the Radical Party who waged a thousand civil-rights battles including landmark campaigns to legalise abortion and divorce, died on 19 May, aged 86, after a battle with cancer. ANSA/ GIUSEPPE LAMI

People attend the final farewell to the founder of the Radical Party, Marco Pannella, during a public ceremony in Rome’s central Navona Square, Italy, 21 May 2016. Marco Pannella, the longtime firebrand leader of the Radical Party who waged a thousand civil-rights battles including landmark campaigns to legalise abortion and divorce, died on 19 May, aged 86, after a battle with cancer. ANSA/ GIUSEPPE LAMI

Marco Pannella, the founder of the Italian Radical Party and a long-time warrior for civil rights in Italy and elsewhere, died yesterday at the age of 86. Many young Italians of today probably don’t even know who he was. Or, if they do know his name, they may have come away with an image of a cantankerous person who sometimes spoke on the radio for hours and who was repeatedly staging hunger strikes that often led to very little.

MarcoPannellaOLDERFOTO

Marco filling Piazza Navona when he was alive.

But to say this would be what the Italians call riduttivo, that is totally simplistic and inadequate and  Romans who are well aware of this today jammed into Piazza Navona, where Pannella usually held his rallies, for a last salute to a principled and dynamic man.

The fact is, that if today’s Italy is a freer, more modern place than it was 40 years ago, this is largely thanks to Marco Pannella and his gadfly, aggressive, dedicated radicals. It was under his leadership that Italians went to the polls in a series of unprecedented referenda and voted to have, first divorce and then, in 1978, to give women the right to have an abortion. They pushed to make contraceptives legal (when I first arrived here in the early seventies they were NOT). They defended the rights of prisoners, of porn stars (one was even voted into parliament on their ticket) and fought to end the draft and, less successfully, for the end of the death penalty in places like the United States, for the liberalization of drugs like marijuana and hasish, for a stop to hunger and for world peace.

Pannella, originally from Teramo in the Abbruzzi, where he will be buried on Monday, became active in politics when he was only 25. In 1955, together with several others he founded the Radical Party of which he became the official leader in 1963.  He hated violence and believed that civil disobedience, sit-ins and hunger strikes were the most effective – and acceptable – weapons of political struggle.

He served in the parliament for many years and was also elected to office in a series of city and regional councils throughout the country. His party collected signatures  – more than 50 million over the course of three decades – for a variety of popular referenda that in his eyes would make the justice system and the electoral process more democratic and responsive.

Marco Pannella in a recent photo

Marco Pannella in a recent photo

He had innumerable love affairs, with both men and women, smoked (unfiltered French Gauloises) like a fiend and indeed from this may have got the lung cancer that contributed to his death. He could be annoying and obstreperous but he made Italy a better place than it was before his arrival on the political scene. Rest in Peace.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1089 1
Will cyclist’s death be first Italian case of vehicular homicide? http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1085 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1085#respond Sun, 27 Mar 2016 14:33:37 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1085 ciclisti

THIS is not safe

It could be a first test case for Italy’s new law which makes some vehicle deaths into homicide. Yesterday, a 52-year old Roman woman driving a SUV hit a group of cyclists pedaling along the Via Aurelia outside the city. One of them died and the another two are in intensive care. To make things worse, the woman fled the scene, although hours later she did turn herself in. An older law sets a five-year jail sentence for leaving the scene of a motor accident without helping the victims so she is likely to be in real trouble.

According to press reports, the woman tested negative for alcohol or drug consumption and the modalities of the accident are not clear. She was released on her own cognizance. But there is a good chance, given the death of one of the victims, that she will be tried for vehicular homicide.

The new bill, signed into law on March 9th of this year, sets sentences of from five to 12 years for that anyone driving drunk or under the influence of drugs who causes the death of another person. In the event that the driver was sober, but driving above the speed limit, jail terms would range from four to eight years. In the evento of multiple deaths, the sentence could be tripled in length although not to exceed 18 years.  A driver under the influence who would cause permanent lesions to another person could serve from six months to two years in jail.  The guilty party would also lose his or her drivers’ license for 15 years in the case of vehicular homicide and five years in the event he or she caused permanent damage. If the driver has fled the scene, he or she will not be able to have another drivers’ license for 30 years

The new law, which increases jail terms significantly, is designed to hopefully help reduce the number of vehicle-related deaths and injuries. In recent years, the 180,000 accidents per year have caused roughly 3000 death annually and something like 280,000 injuries. In 2014, 63 of the dead were children under 14 years of age . According to ASAPS, the Association of supporters and friends of the road police, this year alone there have so far been 160 cases of hit-and-run accidents in which 18 people died. In 20 percent of the cases, the drivers were found to be under the influence of drink, with a blood alcohol level of over 1.5 grams per liter (over 0.8 grams in the case of professional drivers)  or of narcotics of psychotropic drugs.

In 2015, 155 cyclists were hurt and 19 were killed in accidents in with cars or motorcycles the drivers of which fled the scene. In 2014, 24 cyclists were killed. It has to be said, however, that sometimes cyclists themselves are not particularly cautious. Aside from the hundreds, maybe thousands, who regularly go through red lights in many Italian cities, sport cyclists on Italian roads are often not very careful. In driving on the Cassia in the Bolsena region, where I go on weekends, I often find cyclists riding not n single file but in double file, many of whom are therefore riding in the middle of a road which is basically made for automotive traffic.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1085 0
Not a perk? Well, we’ll just make it one. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1081 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1081#respond Mon, 21 Mar 2016 20:43:34 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1081 buvetteIt seems ridiculous, but the new management of the cafe inside the Chamber of Deputies has had to take drastic action. For the first time since 2006 when the sign one sees in many Italian coffee bars – Please get your receipt before ordering –  was first posted at the buvette of Montecitorio, the pay-first rule is finally being enforced.

The private company that took over the cafe runs the cafè says its accounts came up far too short last year – according to press reports about 30 percent less than expected – and something had to be done about the “onorevoli” (the honorables) who would wander off without actually paying for their coffees, aperitivi or snacks.

buvette2According to those press reports the Compass Group expected to take in some 100,000 more than they did. So to the annoyance of many deputies, they have now put their figurative foot down and have marshaled a group of Chamber employees with experience in the field to keep their eyes on what the press her is called “gli onorevoli scrocconi”, the honourable scroungers.

Naturally, not all of the MPs are scrounging; supposedly, it is only a minority. Some of them could be old-timers used to the old-days when coffee and snacks inside the parliament were so cheap that they were almost free. Or it could be the newcomers who suffer from an exaggerated sense of entitlement. In any event, it is outrageous. Not only because prices at the buvette are still fairly reasonable but because between salary, perks and –  later on –  pensions, Italian parliamentarians are among the most highly paid in all of Europe.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1081 0
Absenteeism and other bad behavior by Italian civil servants costs Italy millions http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1062 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1062#respond Wed, 03 Feb 2016 12:54:32 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1062 sanremo-furbetti-cartellino-300x225

Two at a time. Mine and my colleague’s?

From time to time in Italy, an event leads the press, the politicians and, to a lesser degree, public opinion, to run wild over this or that issue. Generally, this interest runs its course and ends more often than not in “un bel niente”, nothing. It will be interesting to see if this is what will likely happen in the case of the rampant absenteeism, Italian style, that came to light a couple of weeks ago when videos filmed at one of the city’s major museums in the course of an investigation by Italy’s Guardie di Finanza showed civil servants punching their time clocks and then going out shopping  or punching in (and out) for colleagues who never came into work at all.

The ensuing brouhah a over that video, and another one filmed in San Remo in the Italian north, showing a city policeman (one of 35 people arrested) punching in wearing only a shirt and underpants, because– he explained, he lived in the building next door – were shown repeatedly on TV as was a third in the small Sicilian town of Pachino, showing people punching in and then leaving the building, in one case to go hunting, last week led Prime Minister to push through a new decree-law (one that later has to be approved by parliament) calling for offenders to be fired within 48 hours and then be given only a month to appeal. Some people, including the leader of Italy’s major union, objected, saying legislation to deal with such events was already on the books.

And so it was. But the process takes so long that most cases of this sort ended by remaining a dead letter. Of 6935 disciplinary proceedings begun last year against civil servants in all of Italy, for all reasons not just for absenteeism, only about 200 ended up by losing their jobs.

This is shameful and reflects the fact that Italy is a country in which  a substantial part of the population does not know, or care, what personal responsibility means and is light-years away from understanding what ethics mean. Furthermore, for reasons that may have to do with Italian history, but are nevertheless impossible to justify, many civil servants seem to feel no allegiance whatsoever to the institutions for which they work, seeing them only as a cash cow to be milked dry. Sorry if that offends someone but it is true and is in fact further confirmed by several recently published reports.

Following the explosion in December, 2014 of the Mafia Capitale scandal in which criminal organizations allegedly misappropriated money destined for Rome city services, a report issued by the ant-corruption chief, Raffaele Cantone, concluded that the Rome city administration did not have the necessary “antibodies” to ward off corruption. Another report regarding 2015, published last week by the head of the city’s anti-corruption office, Serafina Buarné, indicated that that there were instances of corruption in all 26 departments of the Rome city government. This is what she wrote:

“Instances of corruption were found in all the most delicate ares of the Rome city administration….A culture of ethics is totally lacking and transparency is seen as a mere bureaucratic requirement”.

And just recently, on January 31st,  Corriere della Sera’s Fiorenza Sarzanini writes that bad behavior by those 7,000 state employees mentioned above has cost the Italian state something like 4 billion lire. Some were involved in scams of some sort, some  misappropriated public funds, and others took money for jobs they  simply didn’t do.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1062 0
Italy on track to end status as Western Europe’s odd-man out http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1054 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1054#respond Sun, 24 Jan 2016 20:02:32 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1054 The Italian parliament is scheduled to vote late this month week on the country’s first comprehensive bill to legitimize civil unions for co-habitating couples and will be the first law here to allow same-sex couples to enjoy full civil rights, although no provision is made for same-sex marriage per say.

Proposed and written by Monica Cirinnà, a senator from the Partito Democratico, Italy’s largest single political party, it is being pushed forward energetically by premier Matteo Renzi and, as can be imagined, is being vigorously backed by Italy’s gay organizations, who  turned out supporters in droves yesterday in peaceful demonstrations in Rome and 10 Italian cities.

If the law passes, and it seems likely that it will although more changes may be made to counter criticism by some constitutionalists and the opposition of several conservative parties, including the NCD which is part of the ruling coalition, it will end this  country’s embarrassing status as Western Europe’s one hold out against legislation of this type. The Greek government passed a civil union bill in December,  and last spring a popular referendum in Ireland ignored church opposition to legalize same-sex marriage.

The Cirinnà law is divided into two parts. In its current version, the first concerns gay couples alone and basically applies to same-sex civil unions most of the regulations in Italy’s civil code that apply to marriage itself, although it should be noted that this would contravene a ruling by the country’s supreme court in 2010. For many, however,  the most controversial clause is that concerning  “stepchild adoption” (apparently there is no cogent way to  say this in Italian) and inheritance of a deceased partner’s pension. On the first issue, some critics are calling for greater authority by family law courts.

The second part gives almost full rights to all registered cohabitating couples (no pensions, or stepchild adoption, however), including the right of the couple to apply for and be considered for public housing, if they meet the other requirements,  the right to act as a representative for a partner who is sick or dying, the right to visit him or her in hospital or in prison, the right to take over a rental contract in case of a partner’s death, and even the right to get alimony in the event of a break-up.

The law, as written, is so comprehensive that many same-sex couples may never feel the need for marriage, except as a question of principle. For the law also does not allow for the adoption of children, except for the already-existing children of the partner (stepchild adoption) and surrogate pregnancies are also banned here.

Everyone assumes the problem of this long delay in Italy has been caused by the Vatican but I am not so sure. It seems more likely to me that it is mix of two things. One, a swathe of the Italian population, Roman Catholic and not, that is so conservative at its gut that they still think it is fine that single people – gay or hetero – are not allowed to adopt. Two, a pro-Catholic automatic reflex by conservatives, politicians who seem to have forgotten that the Vatican no longer has any direct impact on political life here. And even when it did, because of its close links with the now obsolete Christian Democratic party (defunct since 1992) in major tournaments the score has always been Italian voters, 1, Roman Catholic Church, 0. Has everyone forgotten the Seventies when in two popular referenda, Italians voted first in favour of divorce and later in favour of abortion? I think the identical thing would happen today if the question of same-sex civil unions were to go to a popular vote. Times change, and whether conservatives like it or not, Italy, too, will be a different place tomorrow than it was in the past.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1054 0
Tourism in Rome (or rather, Lazio) hit record highs in 2015 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1049 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1049#respond Sun, 17 Jan 2016 19:40:23 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1049 ColiseumgreyTourism in general is going to have a rough time in coming months (possibly years?) as people become increasingly frightened by the spectre of terrorism and prefer (not me) to stay home rather than to travel. But in the meantime, Rome has been holding its own and, indeed, basking in the glory of knowing that the Italian capital and its surrounding region, Lazio (Latium, but no one actually says that) currently is holding the top spot in the tourism hit parade.

Today, as in the past, the number one attraction in the Eternal City is the Coliseum, know to experts as the Flavian Amphitheatre after the three emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian who belonged to that dynasty and who constructed and modified it in 70 AD and the years following.

The Coliseum which is situated just east of the Roman Forum and which originally could hold, it is estimated, between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, is apparently in pole position for the current Roman boom (except for the Pantheon, which had one million more visitors but which is, after all, free). In 2015, the Coliseum had 6.5 million visitors, roughly a third of the total visitors to Lazio’s sites and monuments and just short of half of the 43 million visitors to the entire country. The number of visitors to Lazio grew by eight per cent over 2014 to outnumber those visiting Tuscany or Campania. “A result without precedent” said Dario Francschini, Rome’s minister of Culture, but not all that surprising, say I, who am increasingly enamoured of Lazio as a region. Also on the top of many tourists’ lists in our region are Villa d’Este in Tivoli and Ostia Antica (although the more experienced visitor knows that Lazio is filled with charming castles and ancient borgos). In Rome, itself, the major attractions other than the Coliseum were Castel Sant’Angelo and the Borghese Gallery.coliseum2_viewable

The downside for Coliseum buffs is that next year the cost of an entry ticket to the Coliseum (this included the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill), will be going up, possibly doubling, from 12 to 25 Euros,  although there is talk of having cheaper tickets for some hours of the day in an attempt to better distribute the flows of visitors.

On the other hand, in coming months there should be a new itinerary including a passage from the third level, known as the terrace, to very top of the structure and possibly the opening of an tunnel that led to the gladiators’ quarters behind the arena.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1049 0
A city unprepared. Even for bird droppings. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1043 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1043#respond Fri, 08 Jan 2016 12:57:14 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1043 The last time it snowed sort of heavily in Rome was in February 2012 and for weeks afterwards Romans, who love to complain about whomever it is who is governing them (or trying to? or pretending to?), were carrying on about how the city was unprepared and didn’t have proper snow equipment. This was ridiculous. Why a city strapped for funds where a snowfall deserving of that name happens about every 25 years should spend money on snowplows and so forth just doesn’t make sense. Shovels, road salt, yes. But heavy snow removal equipment. No way.

But when millions of birds nest in your city’s 400,000 trees every fall and winter and rain sticky-icky birdshit all over sidewalks, roads, cars, benches, garbage cans and so forth, a bit of pre-planning might be in order. Rumors are now circulating that the bird droppings could be dangerous and some of the birds may carry TB or other diseases, but experts say this is not the case. But as the events of recent weeks have shown, it is a problem, and one that needs to be dealt with.

Planning, as anyone who has lived here at length knows, is not part of the Roman DNA, something most Romans and other Italians are the first to say. (If you know Italian, read Sergio Rizzo in Corriere della Sera on January 3.

http://roma.corriere.it/notizie/politica/16_gennaio_03/roma-sconfitta-anche-storni-chiuso-guano-lungotevere-188c1096-b1e9-11e5-829a-a9602458fc1c.shtml#)

If you are lucky, the Rome city administration will react AFTER an emergency so that maybe the next time, disaster will not strike. But there are no guarantees this will happen. Generally, it takes years – decades – for a problem to be dealt with. That is, if it is ever dealt with. This is the capital of Italy, one of the world’s major countries, a major tourist destination and possibly the largest single repository of any city of the treasures of Western civilization. And yet…. And yet.

Getting rid of the birds – attracted by the warmth of the city on their migratory flights who knows where −  might be difficult; reportedly, all sorts of acoustic dissuaders have been tried and have proved unsuccessful. We certainly wat neither to kill them nor to get rid forcibly of the leaves on the trees they favor. Also, seeing a few of those wonderful murmurizations in the evening sky every year is enough to warm the human heart. However, how about a bit of pre-planing by the city and its sanitation department.

Over the last couple of weeks, on more than one occasion, the bird droppings – called guano by the press although I am not sure this is an Italian word – have  mixed with winter rain and falling autumn leaves to create a hazardous situation on the Lungotevere highways that flank the Tiber River on both sides. http://www.ilmessaggero.it/roma/cronaca/roma_guano_ancora_emergenza_liquame_alberi-1461127.html

There have been accidents for motorists and, above all, motorcyclists. And yet on the last occasion, on January 2, one part of one of those highways – essential city arteries, mind you– had to be closed for NINE hours. What about getting sanitation teams out there before the rain or when it starts. How about getting them to hose down the cars in the areas, and the park benches, and the manholes, and the steps leading down to the river? AMA, as Rizzo points out, has 8000 people working for it and surely some of them could be rounded up in the mornings, or when the rain starts to get out and do their job which is cleaning the city streets. I don’t blame the workers themselves (although, who knows, maybe there is a union person somewhere who says cleaning up guano is not part of an AMA worker’s job description) but those higer up who are in charge of daily organization.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1043 0
Rome under attack……..from starlings. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1036 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1036#respond Fri, 25 Dec 2015 16:14:03 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1036 TOPSHOTS Starlings fly in the sky of Rome at sunset on January 27, 2015.  AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTEFILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

TOPSHOTS
Starlings fly in the sky of Rome at sunset on January 27, 2015. AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTEFILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

While many Romans worry if and when their city will be attacked by ISIS fanatics, the immediate concern for many is whether their clothes or cars will be ruined by the massive onslaught of guano or bird droppings that for the last two months has been raining down on parts of the Italian capital.

Every year hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, for the most part starlings, have flocked to Rome where they nest in the trees along the dual-sided Lungotevere river highways, one running north, one running south. They are attracted by the warmth of the city and the relative freedom from predators, but while they may be safer Rome’s inhabitants, and their possessions, are not.

On several occasions this month and last, after motorbikes and some cars skidded dangerously, traffic on these highways had to be temporarily stopped while squads from AMA, the sanitation department, arrived to hose down the streets and get rid of the insidious mix of excrement and the winter fallen leaves that made them even more slippery. (As Rosie Scammell wrote charmingly in The Guardian on November 22,  it’s a good thing the most recent James Bond film, Spectre, was not filmed in this season or Bond’s Aston Martin would have skidded out of control).

For weeks now as dusk approaches,  passersby have been charmed and hypnotized by the birds’ murmuration patterns, sometimes assuming forms that seem to include messages directed at us humans.  I myself once saw an exclamation point float by above Ponte Sisto.

A murmuration of starlings above the  the small village of Rigg, near Gretna, in the Scottish Borders. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday November 25, 2013. The weight of the resting birds on power lines caused some power localised power outages in the village. Still one of the commonest of garden birds, its decline elsewhere puts it on the Red List of endangered species. See PA story ENVIRONMENT Starlings. Photo credit should read: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire


Gretna, Scottish Borders, 2013

 

The birds’ synchronized flying has fascinated scientists . “More analysis is necessary to prove this definitively, but our results suggest” that starling flocks are a critical system, a University of Rome physicist said not long ago. According to the researchers, the “most surprising and exotic feature” of the flocks was their near-instantaneous signal-processing speed. “How starlings achieve such a strong correlation remains a mystery to us”, one was quoted as saying.

So far the city’s attempts to limit the damage by using “dissuader signals”, broadcasting bird distress calls, have proved ineffective.  The Rome daily, Il Messaggero, estimates damages this fall from the excrement have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but claims that the Hitchcock-like attacks have affected tourism would seem to be greatly exaggerated. My advice? Keep a small, folding umbrella with you at all times when you go out.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1036 0
Living in a foreign land: My Home Sweet Rome at the Anglo-American Bookstore http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1032 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1032#respond Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:51:53 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1032 myhomesweetrome_coverI will be talking about my book, “My Home Sweet Rome”  and about the pleasures and problems of living in a foreign land this Friday, November 27, at 18:00 at the Anglo-American Bookstore in Via delle Vite 103 in downown Rome. Come one, come all, and in the meantime HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my fellow Americans!

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1032 0
Rome left rudderless on eve of Holy Year (or not) http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1023 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1023#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2015 08:27:34 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1023 Franco Gabrielli and Francesco Tronca. Hopefully, they'll get things back on track

Franco Gabrielli and Francesco Tronca. Hopefully, they’ll get things back on track

Well, Rome is now in a pretty pickle. Just four weeks from now, on December 8, the Jubilee or Holy Year (the year-long Vatican-sponsored celebration that many of us residents are dreading) is to begin and Rome, the Eternal City, is without a mayor. True, there is now a prefect – actually two prefects – who for the coming months will be running the city. But it is pretty embarrassing that it has come to this and the blame is to be shared out between the outgoing mayor, Ignazio Marino, formerly a successful transplant surgeon, and the political party that sponsored his political career and has now (finally!) disowned him.

Whatever his good intentions when he was elected mayor in June, 2013, Marino quickly showed himself incapable of managing a city with myriad problems in sectors such as sanitation, public transport, and security. And like some of his predecessors he also failed to gain influence over other city institutions whose support, or lack thereof, can make or break any Italian mayor: municipal police, civil servants, and the (often corrupt or inefficient managers ) of the semi-autonomous agencies managing transport or garbage collection. Indeed, Marino’s major failing may well have been that of not putting into effect measures that would allow the city administration to ward off attempts at infiltration by criminal elements; a report by a special commission released this week says he continued many of the former administration’s contract procedures and kept on bureaucrats who for a truly clean sweep should have been replace. As Raffaele Cantone, Italy’s anti-corruption chief put it last week, Rome (unlike Milan) does not have the necessary antibodies to stave off corruption, and Marino clearly was unable to do much in that direction.

Under fire from merchants opposing his controversial plan to shut a good part of the city center to traffic, and faced with growing complaints from  Romans of all political stripes about the filth and disorganization that have increasingly characterized daily life here,  the now former mayor then became embroiled in a dispute about expenses and foreign travel. Interestingly enough, he had been accused of similar irregularities when he left his post as transplant surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh and director of an ultra-modern, Italian-American liver transplant hospital in Palermo, Sicily. But despite this, in 2005  the left-of-center Partito Democratico nevertheless put forth his candidacy to the Italian Senate, to which he was elected the following year. And in 2012 its members chose him, despite his lack of governing experience, as their choice for mayor.

Marino resigned on October 8, only to withdraw his goodbye decision three weeks later. This, in turn, precipitated an unprecedented mass resignation by 26 of the city’s assemblymen, or consiglieri, a move that automatically brought down his administration and quite frankly made him look more pathetic than ever. This was compounded when, egged on by supporters who believe he has been misunderstood and maligned, he compared himself to Julius Caesar and described recent events as similar to Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March. Oh, please.

Some didn't want him to go,

Some didn’t want him to go,

The left-of-center replaced the rightwing mayor Gianni Alemanno, who has since been charged in part of the Mafia Capitale scandal that erupted when it became known that criminal elements had successfully corrupted politicians (from rightwing AND leftwing parties) and bureaucrats in order to directly and indirectly manage key contracts in municipal programs. The Mafia Capitale trial began in Rome last week but it should be noted that Mafia Capitale is something of a misnomer as the scandal has nothing to do with the Sicilian, Calabrian or Neapolitan mafia organizations. It got its name because investigators say the criminal elements involved used “mafiosi” methods of intimidation and corruption.

Marino is in no way involved in this.   But he has been advised that a magistrate is looking into some alleged financial irregularities during a trip to the U.S. this past summer and some other travel and dinner receipts he submitted for reimbursement before that. But they are relatively minor sums and it should be remembered that in Italy a magistrate’s decision to open an inquiry is a formal act that can mean next to nothing in a judicial system where judges are obliged by law to investigate whenever charges have been made. It would seem likely that these relatively small financial misappropriations (if such they were) were seized on by Marino’s frustrated opponents  – both in his own party and others – to speed up his political demise. But he made things worse by at first denying he had been informed that an investigation was underway.

It is hard to imagine why a man who was an accomplished liver transplant surgeon in the United States (he has held chairs as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and played a key role in setting up the ISMETT liver transplant center in Palermo, Sicily, founded in 1997) would have wanted to get into politics. But at least while he was a Senator (2006-2011) he dealt with health related matters. Whoever thought he might make a good mayor for a city where chaos reigns was just not thinking straight. As for Marino himself, he must have been suffering from an incurable bout of plain old hubris. Elections for a new mayor will probably be held next spring with the capital’s various parties now trying to come up with viable candidates to replace him. The coming months will prove to be a particular challenge to Marino’s party, the Partito Democratico, 19 of whose elected councilors spearheaded the recent democratic putsch by the Council. Many members of the local branch of the party (which is also the party of Premier Matteo Renzi) were involved in a recent corruption scandal and are to be tried. And the party’s inability to get rid of the mayor as soon as it became clear he was not up to the task has also severely damaged its image.

In the meantime, the government has appointed a highly-respected Milan police official, Prefect Francesco Paolo Tronca, to run the city until elections are held next spring. Mr. Tronca took office last Monday and spent the following week putting together a team of experts to provide an emergency administration for the Italian capital. Mr. Tronca will be working side by side with Franco Gabrielli, the current Rome Prefect, he, too, highly esteemed and currently in the process of setting up a “dream team” of administrators to deal with the stresses and strains that will inevitably be created by a Holy Year celebration expected to bring millions of pilgrims into the Eternal City.

 

 

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1023 2
Trevi restored, thanks to the Fendi fashion house http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1021 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1021#respond Fri, 06 Nov 2015 17:05:43 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1021 If this seems like a plug for Fendi then so be it. The Italian leather and clothing fashion house spent $2.2 million dollars to pay for the restoration of Rome’s magnificent baroque Trevi Fountain.

Restoration work began in June, 2014 and was concluded three days ago on November 3, when water from the  ancient Aqua Virgo  acqueduct once more surged into the fountain’s huge marble basin. The Fendi initiative is one of several restoration financed by Italian fashion giants.  Internationally famous she producer,  Tod’s,  is funding the restoration of the  Roman Colosseumwhile in Florence, another leather leader, Ferragamo,  recently donated €600,000 towards the restoration of the Uffizi Gallery.

See http://www.wsj.com/articles/photos-a-trevi-fountain-restored-1446593005 for a Wall Street Journal photo gallery.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1021 0
Alberto Sordi’s Rome mansion to become a museum. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1019 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1019#respond Mon, 14 Sep 2015 17:35:46 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1019 albertosordiAlberto Sordi was one of Italy’s greatest actors and comedians, many of whose iconic roles have passed into posterity as testimony to the problems and conquests of postwar Italy and, even more particularly, as commentaries on the character of 20th century Romans.

Sordi,, who never married and had no children, died in 2003 at the age of 83 and left his enormous villa overlooking the Circus Maximus to his sister Aurelia. When she died at 97 in 2014 she left a will according to which the house was to be turned into a museum run by the two foundations that bear his name. According to press reports, the museum will probably be opened a couple of years from now and I, for one, will be most curious to see it.

The villa, which once belonged to a Fascist official, Dino Grandi, was transformed by Sordi into a veritable mansion with a swimming pool in the back, a private movie theatre, and rooms filled with memorabilia and antiques.

He appeared in 140 films, including his masterpieces roles in, “Un Americano a Roma”, “Un borghese piccolo, piccolo”, “Nell’anno del Signore”,  “Il Marchese del Grillo” and “La Grande Guerra”.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1019 0
As Giubileo looms, Rome trying to get ready http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1008 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1008#respond Mon, 07 Sep 2015 13:29:33 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1008 torpedoniRoma2With only three months to go before the onset of a special Roman Catholic Jubilee of Holy Year, the city of Rome appears (the appropriate word is “appears”) to be rushing to finalize plans to help deal with the traffic problems that inevitably will ensue from the expected arrival of an estimated 25 to 33 million visitors. Will they get these things done on time? Your guess is as good as mine but, as anyone who has lived here for a while knows, getting things done quickly in this city is almost a contradiction in terms.

The surprise announcement last April by Pope Francis I of the Jubilee of Mercy took the city by surprise since the last Jubilee – in Italian, il Giubileo − was only 15 years ago, in 2000. And so far little seems to have been done to prepare the Eternal City for the onslaught – an additional 50,000 peole every day, is one estimate − that will begin on December 8,  which for Catholics who have been paying attention (many get it wrong) is the day commemorating the Immaculate Conception of Mary (not Jesus).

The emphasis, at the moment, appears to be that on limiting the entrance into the center of the city of the giant tour buses (the Italians call them torpedoni, large torpedos), that both normal tourists and Roman Catholic pilgrims often use to get here. The corollary is that of speeding up train and tram connections between Rome’s railroad and metro stations and Vatican City. Security measures are also to be reinforced.

Transport Commissioner, Stefano Esposito, is said to be planning  on creating 300 new parking spots for tourist in ten new areas, even if it proves necessary to temporarily requisition the space. All of these would be outside the old Aurielian Walls that once enclosed ancient Rome and as close as possible to subway stations and railway terminals. He is also talking about a major increase in fines for tour buses coming into Rome without permits, from the current 500 euros to 1500 euros.

At present, a maximum of 1,744 buses can circulate within the Aurelian Walls every day, 1,300 of which with annual permits and the remaining 444 with pre-authorized daily permits. The big question is, and anyone who lives here will know what I mean, does anyone – that is, Rome’s city police – ever bother to check? I think it would be very easy to get away without paying, which may be why Esposito’s plan reportedly also calls for the first time for the use of traffic auxiliaries for checking out these giant buses, which by the way play a big part in making traffic here intolerable, especially as they frequently park in such a way that the number of traffic lanes is reduced.

He also plans to up the charges for the permits: annual permits from 2,800 euros to as much as 10,000. And daily permits are to be increased from 200 to 1000 euros.

The next part of the plan involves improving links between train stations and the Vatican. According to Jubilee coordinator, Maurizio Pucci, who is Rome’s public Works Commissioner, the Tiburtina train station (second in size to Termini) is to be a focal point of the improved network. Rome’s A and B subway lines are already overcrowded so the idea is to use the regional trains that go from Tiburtina to Ostiense and St.Peter’s to speed up connections. Right now many of these trains run every 15 minutes and the plan is to reduce that by half. A new parking lot for tourist buses is also to be constructed on the east side of the station terminal, so that visitors can get off their buses and on to trains that will take them across town.

Something will have to be done, however, about the little-used and poorly kept-up (though recently re-done) San Pietro (St. Peter’s) station, which is within (a longish) walking distance of the Vatican. At the moment, the ticket office is not functional, the elevators are broken (a disabled person has to ring for special assistance so he can be transported upstairs in a sort of freight elevator)

From the security point of view a few steps have already been planned. Some 5000 police currently on duty at the Milan Expo are to be transferred to Rome. There is to be a total ban on aircraft flying over the city. And hopefully something will be done to improve safety at the Termini railway station.

But there is an even more most daunting task, given recent events in Rome that will culminate in the start this November of the Mafia Capitale trial on corruption charges of some 50 businessmen and politicians accused. And that is to see that the 50 million euros that the Italian government has earmarked for use by the Rome city government in Jubilee-related public works will be spent honestly and not end up in the wrong people’s pockets.

Just in case anyone is interested, like many things in Roman Catholicism, the Jubilee dates back to a Jewish tradition that saw every 50 years set aside for the return of confiscated lands, the liberation of slaves and the lying fallow of agricultural lands. A ram’s horn, a yobel (hence Jubilee)  would be sounded at the start of that year.

The tradition was carried on by the Roman Catholic church, starting in 1300 when Pope Boniface VIII decided that a Jubilee should be held once every century During the holy year, the pope would grant plenary indulgences to all pilgrims who travelled to Rome and completed certain religious rites. The year begins with the opening of a sealed door in St. Peter’s and sends with its re-sealing.

Starting in 1475, it was decided to hold a Jubilee every 25 years but subsequently Popes were given the possibility of calling a Holy Year to commemorate some great  event. There have been 26 ordinary holy years since Boniface. In recent times, they were held in 1900, 1925, 1950 and 1975. Pope John Paul II called a special Jubilee of the Redemption in 1983. In 2000 there was a regularly scheduled holy year and now Pope Francis has followed in John Paul’s footsteps and called his own. All very lovely, but me, I’m thinking of getting out of town.

 

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1008 0
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1002 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1002#respond Sat, 22 Aug 2015 16:59:00 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=1002 casamonica3If it weren’t so serious, it would be downright funny. Here we are in the Italian capital – the  capital!!!!  – and somehow the family of a deceased criminal is allowed to hold a mega-funeral in the Italian capital, blocking streets and causing public transport in the eastern Romanina neighborhood to be re-routed, with a procession led by a gold-trimmed horse-drawn black coach (six black horses!) accompanied by trumpeters playing the theme song from The Godfather and with huge signs proclaiming him to be Re di Roma, the king of Rome.

Somehow, despite the need for security in a period of growing terrorist threats, a helicopter from the Naples area was able – without authorization and even more worryingly without interference – to fly over the church at an illegally low level and distribute rose petals to the 1500  or so mourners. Press reports say that there were plenty of city police at the scene who seemed to be trying to help to keep things organized. And several Casamonica relatives under house arrest were given permission to attend. This means that Rome police were not taken totally by surprise.

But the real question is why did Rome authorities – the mayor, and above all the prefect, who is the local representative of the government –  allow such a public spectacle by a well-known crime family, when there is a law on the books allowing them to curb overdone funeral arrangements. Why did the anti-crime police know this was being planned and why did they do nothing to stop it. The Casamonica clan, originally from the Abruzzi region, and reportedly tied to the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta,  is said to be involved in extortion, drug trafficking, recycling, prostitution, usury, betting, robbery, gambling and murder, so allowing such a blatant display of wealth and vulgarity is difficult to grasp. All the more so, since November 5, 2015 will see the opening hearing in the so-called Mafia Capitale trial in which 59 politicians, clan members and bureaucrats are charged with corruption.

And let’s not forget that the parish priest of the Don Bosco church claims he had no idea that Vittorio Casamonica had been the head of one of this area’s most powerful organized crime syndicates nor did he seem to be troubled by the fact that a only 14 months ago, Pope Francis said that old members of the Mafia were to be considered as excommunicated. And by the way, this was the same Church that denied, on orders of the Vatican, a Catholic funeral to euthanasia activist, Piergiorgio Welby when he died (after he was taken off a respirator) in December, 2006.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=1002 0
Roman numerals to go? Let’s not exaggerate http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=998 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=998#respond Sat, 25 Jul 2015 20:44:49 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=998 romestreetsignThe Rome city government last week reportedly decided to conform to a 2014 decision by the Italian Statistics Agency (ISTAT) that all street signs in the country have to be written in the same way and, in particular, without using Roman numerals.

Hence a lead story in the Rome section of the Messaggero newspaper saying that the city had decided to eliminate Roman numerals and thus was reneging on an important part of it’s history. “The city is getting rid of Roman numerals from everywhere. Goodby to the traditional numbers of the Empire, from marble street signs to utilities bills”, said Il Messaggero

But wait! Didn’t the Messaggero journalists bother to READ the ISTAT bulletin? This specifically states that the new regulations, designed to standardize and better identify the subjects of street names (and thereby addresses) throughout the country, only apply to NEW street signs and NEW documents. So, if the stone street sign on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II is not destroyed by vandals, it can stay that way, forever. And if your ID card lists your address as 240 Via IV Novembre, it will remain that way until you are for some reason issued a new one, when it will instead read (ick!) 240, Via Quattro Novembre.

Everyone knows that Il Messaggero has been out to get Mayor Ignazio Marino from the start. I don’t like him either, and hold his administration responsible for much of the current degrado (deterioration) of which those of us who live in Rome are only all too painfully aware.

But blaming the Marino administration for this is simply just ridiculous. Come on Messaggero journalists, pull up your socks!

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=998 0
Romans dissatisfied with the quality of their life http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=993 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=993#respond Sun, 19 Jul 2015 14:25:24 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=993 romegarbage Romans are not happy with their city’s services, according to a recent poll, 2000 interviews carried out among as many inhabitants of Rome between March and April of this year, and they are far more critical than they were a year ago. The respondents were asked to use a scale of from one to ten to answer questions. The overall vote was 5.24, the lowest since 2007. This means that a slight majority of the Eternal City’s inhabitants – 51.1% – are still satisfied with the quality of life here. But the number of those who last year described themselves as “very satisfied” has dropped by ten percent and the number of those who say they are “not at all satisfied” as grown by almost 20%

Here are some of the votes:

City surface transportation: 4.6 (42% of respondents said service had worsened.)

Subway transportation: 6

Taxi: 6.5

Garbage collection: 4.6 (with 45.8% saying service had declined and only 14,4% saying it had gotten better.

Street cleaning: 3.5.

Lighting: 5

In terms of social content, the results were a it more encouraging.

Parks and greenery: 6.4

Services and kindergartens: 6.7

Pharmacies: 7

Culture: 7.7 Most appreciated were the zoo, the Symphonic Hall, libraries and museums, with 20.3% of respondent saying cultural offerings had improved over the last two years.

 

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=993 0
Italians behaving badly. Influx of immigrants bringing out the worst in some people. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=990 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=990#respond Fri, 17 Jul 2015 20:03:40 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=990 Okay, so the residents of Casale San Nicola on the north side of Rome, between La Storta and Olgiata (if I’ve got it right) are worried. Some 250 families in an area that according to press reports  has it’s own problems, fear that housing some 100  immigrants and refugees (mostly black you can bet) in a former school is going to create problems of security and probably turn their area into a slum. Backed by a far right organization called Casapound (after Ezra Pound), several dozen residents formed a roadblock in an attempt (vain) to keep the immigrants from entering their new, hopefully temporary, home, scuffling with police and shouting slogans and obscenities. Italy is currently in a difficult situation with regard to all the immigrants that they have rescued from drowning and allowed into the country, probably incautiously and in the process finding itself with thousands of displaced persons they now don’t know what to do with (actually, a lot of other Italians are making money off the plight of these refugees, but that’s another story).  But what the residents of Casale San Nicola did today was not at all a pretty sight. They should be embarrassed.  See video.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=990 0
Has Rome’s mayor won at least one battle? Tomorrow will tell. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=987 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=987#respond Thu, 09 Jul 2015 15:08:11 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=987 camionbarcolosseo

Disgusting!

A Rome administrative court, the TAR, this week ruled that the city of Rome is within its rights to ask licensed peddlers to move their trucks and stands away from the Eternal City’s archeological monuments by this Friday, July 10. The camion-bar – small refreshment trucks− and souvenir stands have continued to set up shop in ways that block the views of ancient monuments such as the Coliseum. The commercial enterprises involved include 22 camion-bar, 43 souvenir stands and 11 florists, for a total of 76, most of which are said to be owned by the somewhat notorious Tredicine family whose various enterprises – watermelon stands, snack trucks, chestnut sellers,, and clothing –are believed to be worth more than 25 million euros.  The family has been buying up licenses since the 1950s and appealed to the court on the grounds that national regulations state that a stand cannot be moved other than to a position that is equally remunerative, in this case impossible. But recently, parliament changed the existing law so that no legal obstacle prohibited the city administration from making changes.

This means that starting tomorrow the stands and trucks have to move. The 22 camion bar have been re-assigned spots in other areas of Rome including Lungotevere Oberdan, Testaccio, Piazza della Vittoria, delle Armi Viale Maresciallo Diaz, via Marmorata, via Beniamino Franklin, via Antonino di San Giuliano, Piazza Albania, Largo Diaz, via della Piramide Cestia and Piazza del Fante.

The 43 souvenir stands, here called “urtisti” although goodness knows why, are to set up along Via di San Gregorio,  on the side across from the Coliseum and the Palatine Hill. Three florists will be moved to Piazza di Spagna and the remaining 8 elsewhere.

Will the administration of Mayor Ignazio Marino follow through with by fining those who do not obey and confiscating their goods? This remains to be seen.

The main problem is that the spaces left free by the camion bar may quickly be occupied by some of the hundreds of illegal peddlers, mostly foreigners but not only, who crowd central Rome’s sidewalks. The city’s prefect, Franco Gabrielli, has promised to constitute a task force to see that this does not happen, but Rome is not known for the ability of its police forces to follow through on issues of this sort.

So far the mayor – for reasons known only to himself – has allowed these illegal peddlers to occupy spaces throughout the city despite the fact that they have no licenses, no permits to occupy public soil, do not pay any taxes and compete unfairly with the city’s stores. His lackadaisical response to this problem is, to my mind, a damning one.

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=987 0
Lucrezia Borgia: an icon of style of the Renaissance. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=979 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=979#respond Thu, 09 Jul 2015 09:00:25 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=979 Locandina LucreziaThis event (July 26) on the grounds of the Castello Orsini in Vasanello (Lazio) promises to be as delightful as the others organized by Patricia Brennan and her InConnection associazione culturale (www.inconnection.it).

 

Elisabetta Gnignera, well-known expert on Renaissance headdresses will be speaking followed by dinner all fresco.  Last Sunday it was delightful baroque music by Evangelina Mascardi  and her musician/choral students,  andthe  luscious apericena on the lovely terrace of the Aranciera. Come one, come all. and don’t miss the tour of the castle.Prenotazioni 3471158641.

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=979 0
Is Fiumicino Airport at Risk? Report shows inappropriate building materials may have been used. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=975 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=975#respond Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:07:19 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=975 aeroportofiumicinoThree months ago, Terminal 3 of Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport (aka Fiumicino) suffered serious damages when faulty electrical connections caused a raging fire to break out and burn throughout the night. The repercussions have created significant organization problems for the terminal, which handles a huge chunk of international traffic (although not that going to North America and Israel). But now, investigators say they have discovered a series of airport-wide irregularities – largely the failure to use non-inflammable materials in parts of the airport’s structures − which, if they are not set right within the next three months, could result in a total shut-down.

The fire that raged in the early morning hours of April 30, led first to a temporary shut-down of the terminal with the resulting cancellations of hundreds of flight. The terminal re-opened a few days later but subsequently, following inspections by health authorities, a major take-off area, the D pier, with 13 gates, was deemed unsafe because of deposits of dioxin and other chemical particulates. The airport has coped reasonably well although people checking in at Terminal 3 are currently re-routed through Terminal 1 or 2 and then, at times, bussed to other parts of the airport.

Now, however, things could get worse.

According to a report by the Fire Department sent to the Attorney General of Civitavecchia, which is handling the investigation and forwarded by him to the Interior Ministry in Rome, the filler substances used between the roofs and the dropped ceilings of the entire airport were not the inflammable materials required by law but inappropriate materials whose presence there may have contributed to the virulence of the fire. He has given the Airports of Rome company (ADR) three months to rectify this situation or else the airport could be closed down. ADR has set up a team of 100 engineers to work on the problem and says it is confident it can meet this deadline.

With an average of 827 takeoffs and landings a day, Fiumicino is Italy’s biggest and busiest airport. Daily there are roughly 110,000 passengers, people flying planes belonging to some 100 airlines to or from 230 destinations in 80 countries. The airport’s entire area amounts to 320,000 square meters. It has 4 terminals and some 40,000 employees and is of key importance in the Italian tourism industry.

Which is why this latest news is simply shocking. Or perhaps not. This is a very Italian story and by no means can the blame be placed solely on AdR’s shoulders. Who disregarded the rules for proper fire safety regulations? Was someone saving money or just being careless? But above all, how come no one noticed? Leonardo da Vinci aiport began operations back in 1961 but major expansions and restructurings took place throughout the 1990s and the early part of this century. Wasn’t anybody looking? What kind of inspections were done, when and by whom? Were earlier inspectors bribed for their silence or is this just a result of the same slipshoddiness and sloppiness that has made Italy what it is (or isn’t)?

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=975 0
Fallout from May fire putting Fiumicino traffic – and Italian tourism − at risk. http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=972 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=972#respond Fri, 12 Jun 2015 22:08:30 +0000 http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?p=972 FiumicinoincendioproblemiAfter ongoing uncertainties about possible health problems caused by a severe fire at Terminal 3 in May, the Italian Civil Aviation Board (ENAC) has decided to reduce air traffic at Fiumicino airport by 40% for the foreseeable future. Coming just as the tourist season is moving into high gear, visitors can expect significant check-in delays or re-routing to Rome’s smaller airport, Ciampino. The cutback was asked for by AdR (Aeroporti di Roma) but is not good news for anyone.

The new regulations mean reducing the number of daily departing flights from 1000 to 600. Following the fire on the night of May 6th, the causes of which are still being investigated (see below), traffic had  already been reduced with almost all low-cost airlines re-routed to Ciampino (in recent years, EasyJet had moved from Ciampino to Fiumicino and other low-cost companies including Veuling and Blue Panorama had also switched to the larger airport).

But even if this meant some 20,000 fewer passengers a day, it was not enough. The attorney general’s office in Civitavecchia, which is handling the investigation, has also put under sequester the D quay, thereby eliminating from daily use the latter’s 14 embarkation jetways, out of a total of 47. The attorney general’s office believes that the fire might have left unacceptably high levels of particulate matter, including two types of dioxin. The main concern is not for passengers, who are in the airport for only a short time, but for airport workers. What is absurd, is that 35 days after the fire, Italy’s health authorities don’t seem able to decide whether the above is true or not.

In the meantime, Alitalia has announced that check-in all its flights will now take place at Terminal One. AdR has set up a task force to help passengers who arrive at the airport only to discover their flights have been cancelled. And airlines are being asked to text their passengers about changes in flight plans. There does not seem to be any problem for arriving passengers. I myself flew into Rome from London on June 3, and things were totally normal. My departure a week before was, instead, more complicated than usual. This was before the shutdown of D quay and nevertheless  after checking in at Terminal One, I had to walk a considerable distance, take a shuttle bus to another departure gate, board at that gate, and get back on another bus that took the passengers out to the plane.

As far as is known, the fire broke out in the kitchen of an airport café. One story that is going around is that the short circuit that caused the fire came from a mobile air conditioning unit that had been placed in front of an electric power board that was believed to be overheating to cool it down. Cool it down? How about just fixing it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

]]>
http://www.myhomesweetrome.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=972 0